My e-complaint that I sent to the Attorney General of Florida, Bill McCollum:
“I bought some lenses and frames at the Sawgrass Mills Mall Lenscrafters store on March 6th, 2008. The scotchgard coating on the lenses has wrinkled and thus I see blurrily through them now. They are ruined. I called Lenscrafters to have them replaced and they told me I would have to pay half the price of the lenses replacement because, as Gonzalo, the general manager told me, "Lenscrafters doesn't make the lenses." Apparently this means they don't guarantee their replacement. My question to you is, how is this legal? I live in Santiago, Chile, and here in the "third world", we have a consumer rights agency that protects us consumers from these kinds of sales practices. Despite what the companies here tell us about their policies, they have a legal responsibility to repair, replace, or refund faulty products up to 6 months after the sale. Since the United States of America is the "first world", I thought we might have a policy like that good for a year.
Is there a law that protects me against this sort of sales trick? The 30 day moneyback guarantee is all "show" to try to get the consumer to trust the company. And then the real guarantee, the one I'm counting on, ends up being a sales trick. I buy one pair of lenses, and I'm forced to buy the second pair at 50%. That sounds more like a sales tactic than a guarantee.”
I've forgotten the last paragraph of the e-complaint, but that basically sums it up.
(I love this third world/first world terminology. It’s so great at provoking shame and it works in both directions, pitting one theoretical world against another. E.g. “Here in the third world, consumers are better protected than there in the first world.” “Once again, we got typical third-world customer service.”)
If you only have “about an hour” (which is never about an hour, it’s more like a day) to buy glasses, you may be in a hurry and not read the back of the receipt that says the guarantee is horseshit after 30 days. You awe the consumer with the 30-day absolute, no-questions-asked complete refund guarantee. And we don’t even ask about what happens after that. I’ll tell you, your lenses break and you have to pay HALF of their replacement. What a great “buy-one,-be-forced-to-buy-a-second-pair-at-half-price sales model”. Kudos to whoever thought that one up.
My recipe for bringing down the box store:
Everyone go buy a couple pairs of lenses from Lenscrafters and then return them during the 30 day money back guarantee.
Did David Browne just wake up one day and say, “I’m going to sell crappy products. When they break, the consumer will have to pay to get them replaced.”? So ripping people off is the secret to success. And what's with the super Christian website? Geesh. I'll tell you a secret: find some self respect.
Any hackers out there with time to kill, please go to http://www.lenscrafters.com/
and crash their site please. Pretty please, with cherries on top.
So after googling LensCrafters (what I should have done in the first place), I found other customers who weren’t pleased with the store.
Here
ripoffreport
LensCrafters or how I wasted a whole weekend
a report of LensCrafters on a forum
as well as a Sarah Palin, a LensCrafters model, and
on the BARF forum
Suck it, LensCrafters
why I think LensCrafters sucks
I guess working for them is no fun either
LensCrafters sucks ass.
and it can eat dick too
I'm not the only one who wanted to know who is the current CEO of LensCrafters.
Here's an interesting tidbit I got off wikipedia: LensCrafters maintains "corporate headquarters in Mason, Ohio (near Cincinnati), along with Sunglass Hut International; but, in fact, both firms are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Italian-based Luxottica. Luxottica also owns Pearle, Target Optical, JCPenney Optical, Sears Optical and EyeMed Vision Care."
I must concede that some customers are satisfied; apparently this doughy, middle-aged guy liked the store.
I've learned in the future I need to do my homework BEFORE I buy glasses. Cuak! This has not been my customer service month in either the "first" or "third" worlds.
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4 comments:
"como el forro" is probably my favorite chilean saying. and yes, in the US we do have legal thoughts about this sort of stuff: Caveat Emptor. "Buyer Beware"
SORRY THAT RELALY SUCKS!!!!
When these sorts of things happen I call and raise hell. H.E.L.L. Like let me talk to your manager, NOW. Get on the phone with consumer protection. Etc. etc.
And about comparaisons with Chile - um, yes i know that they technically have laws about returning stuff in Chile but i've found it to be about 10 trillion more times of a pain in the ass than in the US. Ex: Go to Jumbo, accidentally buy something you didn't mean to have the cashier ring up. You are told to go OUTSIDE to the little returning place where some moron asks you why you're returning the item, gives you like 2 boletas and then you ahve to go BACK to the cashier. Andthat's only if they actually let you return it. BOO!
I assume that the customer service person you called made that comment about the "third world". It sounds like the run around my mom got when she was trying to find my brother's suitcase in Panamá. The man she talked to told her "What do you expect when you send your son to the third world by himself!" My mom starting yelling at him asking him if he had EVER even been to Panamá.
Good luck!
I think this time the emptor has had to take it up the %&& because the receipt said the full warranty was only good for thirty days and after that, you have to pay 50% of the replacement fee should the product be faulty. I noticed that when I bought the glasses, but didn't give it a lot of thought, because I've NEVER BEFORE IN MY LIFE had to return glasses within a year of their purchase. Suck!
Sara @ I was the one who told the manager and then the attorney general (in an e-complaint) that "here in the "third world", consumers are protected against these kinds of things." I think its pretty pathetic that Chile has a better customer service law than us.
A friend of mine in college was from Beirut, and he bought a puppy from a pet store (in Colorado), and the puppy got really sick right away so he was going to bring it to the pet store's vet, but it was a long drive, so he took it to a vet that was much closer because the puppy wouldn't stop vomiting. The pet store refused to pay the bills because he hadn't brought the puppy to the right vet, which given the circumstances, would have been super inhumane. In the States, you have to follow all the fine print or you get screwed. I don't like that about the States. There's little room for negotiation sometimes. It's all about the contract, even if the contract goes against common sense.
Granted, overall, US customer service is superior to Chilean customer service. Absolutely. Which may be why it bothers me so much that we don't have a law similar to the Chilean refund law.
so you want 6 months to do as you wish with your glasses then when you have sufficently sratched them, chipped them and abused them you can take them back and get a new pair for free... So after 2 years of getting new glasses every 3 months after you have sufficently abused them I guess the doctor should also write you a new Rx, for free, b/c by then it will have changed and you will need it corrected for your perpetually renewing glasses that you only had to purchase once... Well if thats the sales strategy in Chile enjoy staying a 3rd world country forever
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